


Lost on You

by beforethedawn, ConstructFairytales, Destinyawakened



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Courtroom, Courtroom Drama, Depression, Episode: s03e07 Digestivo, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, Hannibal taking the stand, Lawyers, Longing, Loss, M/M, Marriage, PTSD, Pining, Therapy, Will taking the stand, hints of hannigram as canon, lying, protecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-12 16:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10494699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beforethedawn/pseuds/beforethedawn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstructFairytales/pseuds/ConstructFairytales, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destinyawakened/pseuds/Destinyawakened
Summary: A look at the in between moments of Hannibal and Will's lives after Hannibal gives himself up to the FBI so that Will will always know where to find him, and despite it all manages to never willingly go to see him. Starts with a recap of the end of Digestivo, works it way through things we don't see, and ends with Jack coming to see Will about the Toothfairy cases.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Please read the tags!  
> 2) Join us on [tumblr](http://constructfairytales.tumblr.com) for updates and asking questions!  
> 3) Two chapters going up to get things rolling! First chapter recaps, sort of POV of Will, etc. Just to get the feels moving along.  
> 4) As always, kudos are nice and comments let us know what you think. We write for ourselves but it's always nice to receive feedback and to know we aren't putting ourselves out there for nothing!

This was the end.

The tea cup shattered, breaking off into large chunks, lying scattered about, unceremoniously in the dark of Will Graham's mind. The shards were big enough to gather back up, to piece together with veins of gold or silver. It was possible, entirely so, and Will could have done it again, as he had now on so many occasions with Hannibal Lecter. Will was strong, Will was willing  but only to a point. He no longer held the need to gather himself together, to lace broken pieces of his psyche into a disastrous mess of a man, just to keep up. 

Will Graham was tired.

The silence was long, drawn out and heavy enough that Will could feel it against his tongue when he took a breath, a deep sigh that shook his eased with flannel frame. 

Hannibal spoke of structures and mind palaces, rooms they shared and where he now finds Will, ever victorious even over the cannibal who so desperately wanted to eat him.

But only to keep Will with him forever, as the moment that was coming was sure to be painstakingly rough, and even if Hannibal seemed to be unaware, it was clearer than day. Will's posture, though relaxed, was tense all the same, a deep seated regret building in his gut. There was only so much one person could withstand, especially with Hannibal Lecter.

“When it comes to you and me, there can be no decisive victory,” Will sighed, his eyes never leaving Hannibal's worn down, cut up face. They both looked like hell, but Will would capture this moment and store it away, as it would be the very last bit of Hannibal he ever saw again.

“We are a zero sum game?” Hannibal asked, swallowing thickly as Will glanced the empty living room of his bed quarters, considering the strangeness of the dogs being gone, and Hannibal being there instead.

How many sleepless nights did he have where he stood awake and wondered if someday Hannibal might just be sitting there, at the foot of his bed, begging for Will come with him, to do it right?

Too many to count. Too many to care anymore. Bigger things were in play, and Will had to push aside childish wants, and do what he had originally set out to do.

“I miss my dogs,” he said, not missing a beat as his eyes slid back over to Hannibal's frame. “I'm not gonna miss you.” His tone of flat, devoid of emotion he had swallowed down, to make this as believable as possible. 

It had to be.

It was.

“I'm not gonna find you, I'm not going to look for you. I don't wanna know where you are or what you do.”

Hannibal's face fell, and Will had to hold himself together, only a few pieces of that tea cup.

“I don't wanna think about you anymore.”

“You delight in the wickedness, and then berate yourself for the delight,” Hannibal said, emotion caught inside of him, rejection evident, and Will was about to drive it home, anticipation thick in the air, and Hannibal for grasping for anything to keep  _ his _ Will.

“ _ You _ delight,  _ I _ tolerate.”

“Tolerance is a fig leaf to hide your ravenous self from the world.”

Assuredly true, but Will no longer wanted to play in that world. He wanted a semblance of normalcy.  “I don't have your appetite,” he all but whispered, “Goodbye, Hannibal.” Will averted his eyes, unable to watch the hurt blossom and crash over Hannibal's features, pristine elegance gone, replaced with a torrid ache that Will allowed himself to feel.

As the door opened and closed again, the weight of loneliness fell heavy on his chest, sea blue gaze watching the door, to see if Hannibal would come back, if he would try again. 

The large pieces of the tea cup cracked again, into smaller little chunks, and then even smaller still, subdividing infinitely until a fine powder was all that remained.

An urge coursed through him two minutes into the profound isolation, and Will stood, head to toe in flannel, and slid into slippers and a house coat, running to the door, where he threw open the screen and stood out on the porch, looking good for Hannibal, any sign of him.

“Hannibal?” He called out in a moment of weakness, the idea, the plan was breaking as much as the tea cup, as the fine China of his mind tried to melt it all back together again.

There was no reply from the woods. Hannibal was gone.

****

Night fell, and Will finally saw the red and blue flashing  lights of police cars, some of them FBI. Will stepped out, shaking his head as Jack stood there.

“He's gone, Jack.”

Jack grimaced, frowning at that, and sure enough, Hannibal walked out, calling Jack by name, and then surrendered. Just as Will had thought he might. He pushed up his glasses, as Hannibal stared at him with his hands behind his head, fingers interlaced.

“I want you to know exactly where I am, and where you can find me,” Hannibal said, giving Will a sly glance as his hands were cuffed and he was dragged away.

Will simply turned and went back inside, letting the FBI scour his home as Jack drove Hannibal into the distance, never to return.

Once the FBI were gone, everything overturned, Will stared at the clutter and mess, at the empty dog beds, the worn clothes Hannibal had dressed him in, faded and warm. The house was empty, thoroughly, even the ghosts of what was left were gone now as the memories faded and so did Will Graham.


	2. Chapter 2

A month passed, day in, and day out, Will attempted to forget Hannibal, despite what he had told him, despite all he had convinced himself he wanted, it was much easier said than done. Normal was a state of mind, after all, and it was what Will would make of it. Gaining his ‘normal’ back -- if he ever had it at all -- would require a lot of therapy, and Will was not about to get that done by just anyone, especially no one he knew. He didn’t take up a referral from the FBI, or Alana. Will simply did a little research and picked the therapist furthest from town, away from anyone he might know, two states over.

In his mind, Will simply called this new therapist ‘Steve’. It was easier to not remember a last name or associate one with him, should anything ever happen… but that was Will being paranoid again, maybe.

_ I don’t think you have to fear becoming as attached to this therapist as you did your last therapist, Will, unless there is something you are not telling me _ , Hannibal’s voice whispered in Will’s mind with a hint of smug amusement at Will’s defensive refusal to become attached.

“No,” Will said out loud, fingers skimming over the business card in his hand from the man that was mailed to him after his inquiry, along with the date of their first appointment printed in neat handwriting on the back.  _ Not nearly as elegant as Hannibal’s _ , Will noted, too. “Because he won’t be you.”

Will pocketed the card, and grabbed his phone and keys, wallet shoved into his back pocket as he headed out for the two hour drive for an hour of therapy.

Steve’s office was in a high-rise building. The waiting room was stocked with old magazines, a gumball machine, and chairs that looked like they’d been purchased from liquidated hotel furniture. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed softly, and the voice returned to Will’s mind, as it had more and more often as of late, as though Hannibal were sitting next to Will in the utilitarian waiting room in a flawless cream suit with a charcoal shirt and scarlet tie.

_ Do you find the ugliness of this room a reassuring statement about your new therapist’s sanity? _ The voice asked, softly.  _ Such banality must be absolutely safe, what horrific creativity could possibly be found in a mind that thought up this decor?  _ Hannibal scoffed.

Often, it wasn’t just Hannibal’s voice, but sometimes a figment out of the corner of his eye, glinting in light colors, as Will so often saw Hannibal in his mind palace; now was no different. “A sane one,” Will murmured, hands clenched tightly together as he hunched over to lean against his knees, waiting.

_ Has harmlessness become your new gold standard, Will? You are ready to tolerate any amount of boredom and dull-wit so long as it is equally dull of tooth? What a lonely way to live. _

A tall, blond, friendly looking man walked out of an office down the hall and smiled at Will, then offered his hand. “Hi, you must be Will? I’m Steve, thanks for coming, my office is just down the hall here. Can I offer you coffee? Water?” Steve gestured to coffee that had been sitting in a pot all day on a fake wood table against the wall, and Hannibal sighed loudly, in Will’s mind.

Will stood, taking Steve hand to shake with a firm grip, Steve’s was firmer, though, Will noted, and let go. “N-no, I’m fine. Thank you.” He was eager to get another therapist inside his mind for once, aware that years ago before Hannibal, he would have never even thought those words.

“Alright, well, let’s get started,” Steve said and showed Will into an office with a short, worn leather couch that looked like more hotel room cast-offs, a coffee table, and a metal desk against one wall. The lamps didn’t match, and the rug was worn in the middle, just in front of the couch. On the tables beside the couch were boxes of kleenex and cough candies in a bowl that looked like they’d been there for years. That said, the room looked neat enough, and sunny even through the closed white plastic blinds over the window. 

“Before we start chatting, I just need you to sign a couple of things: a form saying that I am allowed to release your information to a doctor in an emergency situation, and another form that details my confidentiality policy,” Steve said, handing Will a clipboard and pen.

_ Do you miss me, already?  _ Hannibal’s image sat next to Will on the tacky couch, his impeccable suit and the glass of wine in his hand a sharp contrast to the surroundings.

Will swallowed and nodded his head, more at Steve than Hannibal, not looking in direction of Hannibal’s half faded image. “I know all about that. This isn’t my first rodeo. No offense.”

“None taken,” Steve said and sat opposite Will in a chair as Will signed the papers, then took the clipboard from him.

“So, what is it that you’d like to discuss? You mentioned in your email that you had been having trouble sleeping? Is that still true?” Steve asked.

_ You slept with the peace of an infant when I was looking after you, Will. Don’t you recall? I dressed you in your favorite pajamas, even pulled thick socks over your chilly feet, and tended to your wounds. You had no nightmares, no restless journeys over cold hardwood floors in search of anything in your sleep. I sat next to you, I slept next to you. We were content.  _

“Among other things,” Will said, aware he might not have been forthright with all his information, about who he was, or why. He made sure that Steve would have no bias toward him or his life, or the people he kept company with until they had talked some first. “I have a history of sleepwalking under stress. Nightmares, vivid ones.”

“How long would you say that’s been troubling you?” Steve asked, and took out a pen so that he could jot notes now and then as Will spoke.

“Since I can remember,” Will sighed, shrugging his shoulders. “Over-active imagination leaves me susceptible to those sort of things…” Will didn’t look over at Hannibal’s image next to him, but he could see his gleaming cream suit just out of the corner of his eye.

_ I would not blame your imagination alone, Will. Your refusal to accept yourself, your self-loathing is what disturbs your slumber. You rob yourself of rest, very possibly because you do not feel you deserve it, not when blood sets your heart pounding in such an unseemly way,  _ Hannibal murmured, into Will’s ear. If he were really there, Hannibal’s breath would have warmed Will’s skin.

“Do you have any family history of mental illness?” Steve asked.

“My father says my mother was a little like me. Overly… empathic,” Will explained, hands wrung tightly together as he tried his best to ignore Hannibal’s words, and concentrate on Steve’s. “But I don’t remember her. She left when I was very young.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Steve said, sympathetically. “So, were you raised by your father?” he asked, politely, and with what seemed like genuine interest.

_ Do you imagine your mother slept walked as well, Will? Do you imagine she is from whom you inherited your darkness? I’m sure I would have loved to have met her… _

“I was. If you want to call it that.” Will shot a look at Hannibal, briefly, too quickly to be noticed, his hackles were rising, well aware this was his imagination, and yet it was so, so real, just as Abigail had been.

Hannibal was looking at Will, staring at him with sinister stillness as he sipped the ever-present glass of wine in his hand. “What sort of parent was your father?” Steve asked, gently, and tilted his head at Will as he listened.

Hannibal just drank as he waited for Will’s answer with his therapist, pointedly.

“Present enough until I was old enough to fend for myself,” Will answered, enigmatically, “He was an alcoholic.”

“You must have learned to be independent at a young age. Was there any abuse in your home?” Steve asked, his body language open and attuned to his client.

_ He would never have survived the attempt _ , Hannibal whispered, knowingly.  _ You were born what you are Will, just as I was. _

“No. Verbal maybe, when he was drunk, but I usually found other things to do so I wasn’t around when he was,” Will explained, trying hard not to bat at the invisible Hannibal next to him.

“Things like what? Did you have siblings?” Steve asked, slowly building a clinical picture of Will’s home life as a child.

_ You never told me anything about your father. Then again, I suppose you didn’t have to, any more than I would have to tell you about mine. You and I can dispense with the small talk, and move on to the meat of the issue… _

“No siblings. I read a lot. Dove into school work. I… got caught stealing a few times, but I was young and the Graham boy ... ‘special’ so I got away with it,” Will said with a tip of his head.

“Special? Were you ever diagnosed with anything when you were young? Lots of people in difficult situations are, most of them end up with some kind of diagnosis after developing coping mechanisms,” Steve said, gently, elbows on his knees.

_ Ever the fragile teacup, Will? He’s certain of it. His guard is down, you are officially underestimated and pitied, _ Hannibal said with a sigh.  _ Tell me Will, have you considered killing him yet? Have you looked at the pulse in his throat, and considered driving a pen into it? _

“Lots of people wanted to place me with Aspergers, or some other social disorder, but the truth is I just feel too much for other people, and my imagination runs wild,” Will admitted. “Not that it hasn’t worked for me in the past to let them assume anything they might want to believe I am.”

“It’s a bit of a habit in this profession to try to categorize people,” Steve admitted. “Do you have children of your own?” he asked.

Shaking his head, Will spread his hands against his thighs. “Never married, never had children.”

_ You had a child. I gave you a child, Will, or do you remember that? _ Hannibal asked, under his breath, like a slighted spouse in a couple’s therapy session before he drank again, and looked away. 

“Any room-mates? Close friends? Significant other?” Steve asked, tactfully.

“Not anymore,” Will said under his breath, just as Hannibal had, looking down at his hands, holding back the pain that it had caused him to shove the only person who had ever known him completely right out of his life.

“You lost someone, recently?” Steve asked, watching Will’s expression of what Steve could only describe as sorrow, pain, loss.

“I’ve… lost a lot of people in the last year,” Will said quietly, and rubbed his hands over his face. “A young woman I had hoped to teach to fish. Her father killed her mother and attempted to kill her a few years ago.” Will looked down at his hands. “I… recently broke it off with someone, too. It was terrible  _ relationship _ .”

“Terrible, but obviously it meant something to you,” Steve said, tactfully. “Have you been having problems coping with the end of the … relationship?” Steve asked, after making a little note on Will’s file.

“I didn’t want to think I was, but, Yes, I think it’s hard for me to know that it’s so final, that I can’t cross the Atlantic this time to find him. I can’t call him. He won’t show up at my door with food, insisting I need to eat. I have to move on though, I can’t stay in this mode,” Will insisted, though hard, he had to push through.

_ You were the one who finalized it, Will _ .  _ Are you horrified at your own strength? You said you never wanted to think of me again. You tried to deliver the killing blow, but it failed to kill us. Now our relationship languishes in a painful state of not quite dead. You would never have left an animal in such a state, Will. You should have killed me. _

“You find yourself pre-occupied with this relationship? Unable to stop examining it and thinking over the end?” Steve guessed.

“Yeah. Despite what I told him about not wanting to think about him anymore, it’s all I think about. I can’t give him that satisfaction though. I did what I had to do, I said what I had to, so he would turn himself in.” Will was arguing mostly with himself on this one, as he knew what he had done, and it hurt Hannibal worse than any blade ever would have. He did it because it was the right thing, and Will needed his mental health intact.

“I see,” Steve nodded, and made another little note. “Was he ever abusive towards you? Would you say your relationship was uneven?” 

_ Is that what you tell yourself, Will?  _

“Maybe at first. I got encephalitis a few months after meeting him,” Will said, and then shook his head, waving his hand, “well I could have already had it, I don’t know, but I got it, and he knew before anyone else and never told me or doctors. He used it to manipulate my mental health.” 

“That sounds incredibly abusive,” Steve said, and sat back in his chair, with a slight frown. “Yet, you don’t really seem to see it that way. Why not?”

“He wanted to see what would happen. Medically, emotionally. I understand it, perfectly, and I hated him for it for months, but… then we talked and we become friends, equals. It was better.” Will tried to reason, but reason sounded so loose right now. “Of course, I was in on trying to entrap him for murder at the time…”

Steve hesitated, and tilted his head at Will. “And you became … friends while you were entrapping him? That’s … unique.”

“We were friends before, but once I was let go from the hospital, we got closer, and I used that to try and get him to murder, to trap him. But somewhere along the way I got attached, and that backfired on me,” Will explained, vaguely, wondering when Steve was going to really figure it out. Maybe he wouldn't.

Steve nodded slowly, and looked down at his paper, then back up at Will’s face.  _ There it is, Will. He’s placed you, and by association, me. _

_ “ _ I see,” Steve nodded, and seemed to decide to keep pretending he didn’t know who Will was from the news. They were discussing Hannibal Lecter. “Your … friend, are you still in contact with him?”

“No. I am not, and I plan to keep it that way,” Will explained, giving Steve a look. He knew it was just time until Will was placed, and then Hannibal, but he knew that was something that had to be brought up sooner rather than later. Will wanted to go in with a clean slate, and ease into it.

“It sounds like that might be best for you,” Steve said, relaxing a little when he heard that.

_ Little does he know,  _ Hannibal whispered to Will, into his ear again.  _ Innocent William Graham is capable of just as much as the monster. _

“What’s best for us isn’t always the easiest though,” Will replied to the comment smoothly, ignoring the voice next to him, he really didn’t need Steve to know he was hearing and seeing things. Then again, Will Graham wasn’t known to be stable a day in his life, right?

“You find it hard to resist visiting him?” Steve asked. “Would they allow that?”

“Force of habit,” Will shrugged, “Not yet. There will be trial, and I don’t think anyone but his lawyer is allowed, and that’s for the best. The least amount of ease there is in my seeing him, the better. I told him I didn’t want to see him or think about him anymore, and I want to mean that.”

“What are you afraid will happen if you see your friend again?” Steve asked, non-judgmentally.

“That I will miss him and take back everything I said. I think with time it’ll be easier, but right now the wound is still fresh.”

“It’s hard to leave someone you cared about behind, no matter what they did. You may have become addicted to him, in a sense. What was it about him that makes him hard to leave behind? What did he provide for you?” Steve asked.

_ Everything _ , Will thought, but folded his hands in front of him now as he leaned back, considering his answer, even here he had to hide a certain part of himself. “Understanding. Hannibal accepted who I was, we ignored the bad to savor the good, even when the bad was wrong and regretful.” How regretful, well… that remained to be seen.

_ I only regret what drove you to shut me out. Guilt is not an emotion I experience often, but it is hardly one I have never experienced. _

“He’s likely a psychopath. I don’t think regret is possible, or love,” Steve said, carefully.

A distant sort of look overcame Will for a moment, well aware that just was simply not true. “Everyone has their one weakness, even psychopaths. Maybe even one they don’t mean to have,” he offered, lightly.

“Do you really believe he cared for you? They can be very persuasive, very good at making you think they aren’t what they are…” Steve said, setting the clipboard aside.

“I think he cared enough, as much as he could. I saw how he could be with others, the insincerity of it, the fake. It wasn’t like that when we were alone and talking,” Will argued, quietly, though the didn’t expect someone who was not himself or Hannibal to understand. “I got him to surrender to the FBI. He hated the fact I would never want to see him again or know where he was.”

_ I permitted you to manipulate me, to hurt me, again. At least I left you scars to show those around you, proof of my sins. Your betrayal is the sort that leaves no marks, no evidence. Even the Ripper is impressed, Will. You are a skillful artist. _

“Have you been having flashbacks? Seeing and hearing things?” Steve asked, sympathetically.

Will’s gaze dropped toward the carpeted floor, looking at Hannibal’s image out of the corner of his eye. “Sometimes…. Often.” Will always had nightmares of the night Hannibal gutted him, and it wasn’t because of the pain or the injury, it was the mental note that he’d hurt Hannibal, and in turn, Hannibal would hurt him. Betrayal.

“How often? Daily?” As Steve asked Will the question, Hannibal shifted a little closer to Will, watching him closely.

“When I sleep, I dream about it. In the waking day, he follows me around like a fly buzzing around my head,” Will admitted, making it clear now _why_ he had come here for help.

“So this is more of a constant seeing and hearing of your … friend, as opposed to sudden flashes of him?” Steve asked. Hannibal swirled his wine in it’s glass, and sighed at Will.

_ Self-delusion is far more damaging to you than any visual or auditory hallucination, Will. Perhaps I am your conscience. Imagine the irony in that. _

“The voice inside my head sounds like his,” Will explained. “I, uh… had this problem after Abigail died. I didn’t come to terms with her death for months after she was gone. Sometimes she was constantly there, sometimes she wasn’t. I didn’t…” Will sighed, and swallowed the lump in his throat, hands wrung together again. “I know he’s not here, but he’s there just the same. I imagine I once I’ve let go completely, then he’ll be gone.”

“It’s a coping mechanism, one that helps grieving people adjust to a loss. It does happen, and you’re right, once you are ready to let go, you will stop imagining him with you. Does he ever tell you to do anything? Does he tell you distressing things?” Steve asked, ready to write another note.

_ I believe he is screening you for schizophrenia, Will. This new doctor is rather lacklustre, isn’t he? _

“No, he just comments on everything,” Will reassured the doctor, or he hoped it was anyway.

“Then I wouldn’t be too worried. If he urges you to harm yourself, or someone else, call me immediately, of course,” Steve said, with relief as he made a note.

_ I have never been interested in anything but freeing you to follow your own impulses, Will. Nothing would delight me more than for you to realize your own formidable power, and embrace the self you work so hard to push away. _

It was just his inner thoughts picking up on Hannibal, he knew that, and yet he grew tiresome of it quickly. “No, he’s--it’s-- never said anything like that.” Will cleared his throat. “It’s the main reason I’m here though. I want to move on and not keeping seeing him or hearing him. He’s locked up now.”

“So I … guessed,” Steve said, with a spread of his hands. “It sounds like you have some unresolved issues with him. It’s possible that the best way to resolve them, safely, is to pick up a journal, and write to him in it.  Write down what you need say, what you need to tell him, and that might help you work through and past it if you can get it out of your system and then be able to look at it later on.”

_ Love letters, Will? I’d like that, very much. I’ve always enjoyed the lost art of epistolary communication. _

Will hummed at that, ignoring the taunting bit from the may as well be ghost next to him. “I thought about that. I guess it can’t hurt. Sooner the better, before the trial.”

“One second, I may have something,” the therapist said, and opened a desk drawer, then pulled out a blank notebook, and handed it to Will. “It’s not fancy, but it’s a start.”

Will could have gotten his own, but honestly he would have thought too much about what it looked like, what kind of pen, paper… until he finally didn’t do it at all. He took the notebook. “Thank you. You’ve saved me an afternoon of pacing around a stationary store,” he said, sarcastically.

“You’re free to get your own, of course, but …” Steve sat back in his chair, and watched Will. “If you’d like, you can share what you’ve written every week, if not, that’s alright too.” 

_ I would have preferred a slightly high quality book in which to be remembered, but considering that you never wished to think of me again, I suppose I am grateful,  _ Hannibal murmured next to Will, staring at him in profile.  _ Are you certain you really want to be rid of me? Completely? _

Will smiled uncomfortably at that, dragging his teeth over his top lip nervously. “Maybe. I guess it depends on what gets written doesn’t it?”

“And on how you feel about sharing it, how you feel about trusting me as a therapist,” Steve nodded. “How much are you able to sleep a night? Just, on average?”

“Unsure. I know you can’t talk about me, but it is personal,” Will said, decidedly. “Not that I feel the need make you think any better or worse about me, it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s a pretty healthy attitude to have about it. I’m not here to pass judgement, I’m here as a sounding board and someone who can guide you through the grief. You’re mourning, as though he died. Is that how it feels?” Steve asked.

“I ripped him right out of my life after getting him back. I have to imagine he’s dead to move on,” Will explained, sitting back, arms crossed over his chest.

_ You’ve murdered me, in your mind, and now you’ve come to another therapist, seeking absolution from the guilt. Perhaps they’ve decided to keep me in a basement cell, Will, a sort of grave...  _ Will’s inner Hannibal mused, knowingly.  _ We could have run together, and you denied me, a second time. Perhaps both guilt and regret keep you awake at night now, do you wonder where we might have run?  _

“You need closure,” Steve nodded, “we all need closure before we can move on from a relationship. Whether the other person gives that to us, or we find a way to provide it for ourselves, it’s necessary.”


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

 

Finally, three months and a handful of sessions between himself and Steve in, Will moved. He sold his house in Wolf Trap, and bought a bigger one in Moosehead Lake, Maine. It had plenty of space for the dogs, new and old, his little pack growing by the week, even though some of the older ones had to be put down.

Will found himself outside a veterinarian's office with Buster on his leash, who had escaped again into the woods by the house, and got stuck in a trap. Nothing serious, Will had gotten him out, but the little dog had a few deeper cuts Will wanted checked out, for his peace of mind.

 _He is a small, and scrappy animal with an inextinguishable instinct for battle. I cannot imagine of whom he reminds me,_ Hannibal whispered in Will’s ear as he sat next to him, smugly.

Will sat in the small waiting room, holding Buster in his lap as the little dog yipped at the people who walked by, as if testing them, seeing if they would stop and pet him. “Hush,” Will said, running a calloused hand down over Buster’s back, trying to soothe the excitable dog.

“Oh, isn’t he just so cute,” a blonde, cherubic-looking woman said, holding her palm out for the Buster to sniff. Will followed semi-manicured nails up porcelain soft skin, to her face where light blue eyes met his own.

“He seems to think so,” Will said, and the woman smiled down at them -- at _him_ \-- and for the first time in a long time, Will felt his breath knocked out of his lungs, and not one piece of him lingered on Hannibal, for the briefest of moments.

_Will? Will, staring is rude._

“I’m  Molly,” she said, offering her hand to Will, who took it, his other still wrapped tight around Buster to keep him from trying to run off with his injuries.

“Will. And… this is… Buster.” As if practiced, Buster barked out and wagged, little tail flopping against Will’s thigh with little thumps.

“He’s so cute. Wally come look,” Molly said, and straightened, calling her son over, no more seven at most, and his eyes lit up at the dog, and reached to pet him. “We have a few dogs at home.”

 _How thrilling, another dog owner in a veterinarian’s office, whoever would have foreseen that?_ Hannibal sighed, and watched Will behave like a schoolboy, eyes sharp. _I think Buster would like it more outside, Will..._

“Yeah, we found one the other day in a ditch!” Wally said, and Will tilted his head up at that.

“We’re here to pick him up,” Molly said, as if realizing that was the answer Will was looking for.

“Mister Graham?” The Vet called from the door, “Buster?”

 _Enough mooning over the strange woman, Will. I believe Buster requires help?_ Hannibal muttered at Will’s side, thoroughly irritated and annoyed by Will’s moon-eyed fascination with the woman Hannibal would describe as utterly ordinary.       

Will stood, sea blue gaze on Molly and then Walter; fate had an interesting way of stepping in, if he believed in those things.

“That’s us. Can I-?” Will started to ask, and Molly reached over and snagged a pen off the counter and one of the vet’s cards and wrote her own number on the back, and slipped it into Will’s coat pocket.

“Yes.”

 _What an elegant courtship, Will,_ Hannibal muttered, testily.

***

A month in, Will and Molly were inseparable. Will found pieces of himself in here, and found it easy to reflect back to her what she wanted and needed from him. Will had always been good at mimicking, able to get inside the minds of anyone, if he tried. Molly was simple, but just, and easy going. Will could be some of those things, especially around Molly. No need to be intense, no need for complicated, no need for wordy poetry just to match the intelligence of someone else.

_Yes, God forbid you acknowledge the uncomfortable truths about who and what you really are, Will. Better by far to bury yourself in a thoroughly unremarkable life by pretending to be what you never have been. If ignorance is bliss, you must be very happy, indeed._

Easy. Relaxed. Exactly what he needed after nearly three years of of high strung intensity. Memories were fading and the doors of his memory palace were closing, storing away vital information for another time, should it ever come to that.

 _If_ it ever came to that.


	4. Chapter 4

Hannibal Lecter was permitted only one visitor: his lawyer. Their visits were conducted in a private room with every security precaution possible taken to bring Hannibal there. He was perfectly polite as he was put in a straitjacket, strapped to a dolly, masked and muzzled just for the short trip down the hall. The mere sight of him would stun the other prisoners into silence, and they stared as Hannibal the Cannibal was wheeled past.    
  
Once in the room, he was unmasked by two guards, with four more guards supervising the procedure, and then unloaded from the dolly so that he could be cuffed to a heavy metal loop that protruded from the top of the table. Only then was the lawyer allowed in, and only after he had been checked for anything the Chesapeake Ripper could use as a weapon. 

_ It’s as if they don’t trust you-- can’t imagine why? _

There it was, Will’s voice in Hannibal’s ear, again, like the sing-song commentary of a sarcastic little bird who watched Hannibal’s newly reduced freedoms, and kept him company.

“Dr. Lecter, I would shake your hand, but-” Hannibal’s lawyer said with a nod to his shackled hands. The man was tall, and professional looking, very experienced, and quite expensive. 

_ But would you really want to shake his hand? Look at him. Greasy. _

Hannibal nodded in return, excusing the absence of a traditional greeting. “Under the circumstances, a handshake is not necessary,” Hannibal said, well aware that the guards were waiting outside for any sign of a disturbance, any violence. They really did not understand him, not at all. 

“Of course, your defense will be rather difficult to present, given the evidence against you, Doctor. You turned yourself in…” _ What other choice was there? I denied you anything and everything. I did exactly what I didn’t ask for. _

Hannibal’s eyes focused over the lawyer’s shoulder, on something that no one else could see, some _ one.  _ “I did. Before you suggest it, I am not insane. I was in full control of my faculties, and was perfectly aware of what I was doing while I was doing it,” Hannibal said, with a tone of finality.

Hannibal’s lawyer looked up at him from a folder of papers that had been declared safe after the staples had been removed. His jaw dropped a little, and he blinked once at Hannibal, obviously not a man accustomed to being surprised. “You … do not want to consider an insanity plea?” he whispered, astounded.

_ Insanity? We both know you’re only as insane as I am _ , Will said from behind Hannibal’s lawyer, dressed in dark pants and a blue shirt, hands in pockets as he paced a short distance.

“That is not precisely what I said,” Hannibal said, evenly, and made a deliberate attempt to focus his gaze on his lawyer. “I am not insane. However, I would rather remain in the world for a while longer, even in here. If we are faced with no choice but to plead insanity, I’m certain I can think of a couple of psychiatrists who could make a convincing diagnosis and would be willing to testify on my behalf in a court of law.”

_ Just how many favors are owed to you, Hannibal? _ Will raised a brow toward him, over the lawyer’s shoulder.

“I’ll say I’m seeing and hearing things,” Hannibal said, pointedly, making eye contact with the Will Graham his mind constructed, out of sheer desperation to be near him again. 

“Things that drove you to commit thirteen murders?” the lawyer asked, specifically, and looked over his shoulder to see what was there. Nothing. _ Thirteen? That’s it? We both know it’s been far more than that... _

Hannibal was silent and still a moment, then took a deep breath, and exhaled it, still staring at Will. “I saw things that made me doubt who I was, who I am, and convinced me that killing, cooking, and serving my victims would be a beautiful thing to do,” he said, a little flatly, then looked at his cuffed hands on the table. “Who was I to argue with what I thought at the time were veritable angels?”   
  
“And, what will you say prompted you to turn yourself in?” Hannibal’s lawyer asked, with a raised, shrewd eyebrow.   
  
Hannibal felt his throat squeeze a little, and he looked up at the spot where he saw Will, again. “They abandoned me. My voices left me like I was an old dog whose bad habits they could no longer tolerate, and gave me over to the shelter.”

_ I would never do that to a  _ **_dog_ ** _.  _ Will rolled his eyes, huffing a sigh as he walked around the table and sat on it facing Hannibal.  _ Face it, you can’t take rejection. _

Hannibal shifted his jaw as he imagined Will comparing him unfavorably to a dog, and watched his lawyer take notes with a golf-pencil, the only writing instrument the guards would allow him to bring into the room. 

“That’s good, actually, pretty convincing. I don’t think we’ll have very much trouble, Dr. Lecter, you’re an expert in your field. I will need the names of the other doctors you think might provide supportive evidence?”    
  
“Alana Bloom, Frederick Chilton,” Hannibal said, and watched his lawyer write down the names. “Do we know yet if the prosecution has a list of their own witnesses?” Hannibal asked, with interest.   
  
“It’s all very new, of course, but…” Hannibal’s lawyer pulled out a list and read it over. “Quite a few, however, none of them will be able to deny your insanity plea. You are the only expert on yourself.”   
  
“Does the list include Will Graham?” Hannibal asked, as he raised his chin and looked as serene and he could manage when he felt his heart start to throb in his neck.   
  
“Yes, it does,” Hannibal’s lawyer admitted, and began to shuffle his papers.

“I see. Thank you.” Will would be called by the prosecution to testify against him, of course. They would be in the same room, and he would be able to see Will again, to hear his voice, even to smell his skin. It was something to which Hannibal could look forward. Perhaps after the trial, Will would visit.

_ Excited to see me _ ? Will’s brows raised a little, tauntingly almost, at Hannibal.

“When is the trial slated to begin?” Hannibal asked his lawyer, while the tall man packed his things. “In a month. It could get pushed back a little, but hopefully not too long. I will see you again soon, hopefully with our own witness list and expert testimony,” he said.    
  
Hannibal nodded at him, and gazed up at the ghostly image his mind created of Will. “Perhaps,” he murmured, softly, to no one there as the guards filed in again and began the long process of securing the most dangerous man in the country, and wheeling him back to his high-security cell, where they unloaded him under Dr. Bloom’s watchful eye, and left him there behind thick glass, with the administrator on the other side.    
  
“How was your meeting with your lawyer, Hannibal? Productive, I trust?” Alana asked, grimly.   
  
“As productive as one can expect. I will have to plead insanity. Might I rely on your expert testimony for that?” Hannibal asked, and stepped closer to the glass, then looked at Alana’s abdomen. “Are you experiencing morning sickness yet, Dr. Bloom?”   
  
Alana swallowed and shot Hannibal a look before she sighed through her nose. “You would rather be declared insane than die? I’m nearly surprised.”

She waited a beat, watching him.

“Will Graham is not going to come and visit you, Hannibal.”

_ She doesn’t know me; I can’t stay away, _ Will said, inside the cell with Hannibal, walking around him.

Hannibal closed his eyes, and smiled a little as he focused on Will’s voice, on the truth, and nothing else. Alana seemed to take it as a dismissal, and when Hannibal did not open his eyes, or speak again, she let herself out, and Hannibal was alone again, with his imagination. It was the next best thing to being in the world with Will.

“You are right. She doesn’t know you,” Hannibal murmured as he moved to a shelf to pull out a sheaf of paper and a stick of charcoal with which to sketch while he had this Will, his imago, keep him company.

_ I will always come back to you. I sailed across the Atlantic to find you _ , Will reminded him, hands behind his back as he walked over to watch Hannibal sketch.

“You did,” Hannibal said, free to speak to Will aloud as he began to sketch a sailboat on the waves of the Atlantic, and it’s captain, then looked up at Will. Hannibal imagined Will as he really was, beneath the layers of ‘harmless fisherman’ that kept people from expecting too much of poor, abused Will Graham. Will, as he appeared in Hannibal’s mind, was sleek and deadly, every curl in place, his clothing dark and fitted. No hiding. This was what hid beneath the facade, beneath Will’s disarming and nearly pitiful people suit.  “You sailed across an ocean in a ship you built with your own hands to find me, and then you told me that you never wanted to see me again,” Hannibal murmured, sketching some harder lines with his charcoal.

_ You hardly believed me. That’s why you’re here. You’re waiting _ , Will leaned in close to whisper it against Hannibal’s ear, if he were real, Hannibal might just feel his breath.

Hannibal swallowed, and closed his eyes again, then turned his head toward Will’s. “If this were a fairy tale, I would be waiting in a glass coffin for you to come and wake me,” Hannibal said, and looked at Will’s face, as he knew it must look now after his cuts and bruises had healed. “I’m kept behind a glass wall, instead, biding my time. I do wonder what you’re doing now, Will. I have no doubt you will try your best to become what you never have been, and never could be: ordinary. When you are finished with the fruitless pursuit of normalcy, when life is too sedate and dry, when you feel yourself going mad with too much small talk and too little poetry, you will come to see me.”

_ How long are you willing to wait, Hannibal? One or two years? A decade? ‘Til you’re so old I won’t want you anymore? I’ll come in here and leave all over again. _

Will could be cruel, deliciously so. Hannibal swallowed and looked at the mirage, his powerful mind’s attempt to soothe itself, and he smiled, slowly.  “You are hardly a shallow man. If you were only bound to me for the look of my face and body, I would have been much easier to abandon, long ago. Our connection is much more profound, so profound that you panicked in Florence, and drew a blade behind my back. You could not have done it if I had been looking at you,” Hannibal said, steadily.

_ So, what changed in me to get rid of you now?  _ Will looked at Hannibal imploringly.

Hannibal stood, and looked at his mirage, so detailed and real that Hannibal could very nearly smell his skin. It was excruciating. Hannibal imagined being so bound to someone that complete separation was impossible, and yet being kept from them felt much as it must have to be drawn and quartered, if one’s skin never broke to provide the relief of death. “You, as you are in the world out there, are still terrified, Will. You’re not terrified of me, but of how easy it would have been to fall into a life with me, how easy it would be to admit that you and I could become so close, so perfectly happy, that God would weep with jealousy.”

_ Or maybe it had to do with the fact you tried to eat my brain _ , the mirage said, factually, with a sigh, starting to walk the length of the cell again.

“We have a history built on betrayal. I tried to end our zero-sum game by consuming you, but only after you tried to end it with a knife in my back. The only reason I cut you before you cut me was Chiyoh’s intervention,” Hannibal said, and nodded at Will’s shoulder, where the bullet had lodged.

The image of Will just stood there looking at Hannibal, knowingly. Would they ever come to an agreement? Hard to say.

“Perhaps even my imagined Will Graham is not yet ready to face that,” Hannibal whispered to himself, and sat down again, heavily.

_ Or, you have not forgiven yourself completely for the attempt. You’d be even more without me now than you are already if you had gone through with it. _

Hannibal looked at the rough sketch of the boat on the waves of the ocean, and managed a wry smile for a moment at it, then at Will. “It was impulsive and desperate,” he admitted, softly, eyes unfocused for a moment as he stared into space, remembering. When he looked up at Will again, his forehead was bleeding, and Hannibal stood. “As much an act of suicide as an act of homicide.”

Blood dripped and oozed down the mirage’s head, over his eyes, beautifully.  _ Maybe you should have lead with an apology. _

***

“All rise,” the bailiff commanded the packed courtroom as the judge entered for the first day of Hannibal’s trial. Hannibal stood behind a desk, in a suit and tie, in shackles, with two guards watching him, actively, at all times. 

  
“Be seated,” the Judge ordered. There was not an empty seat in the courtroom, and the press was massed outside in a swarm of cameras and recording devices, ready to pounce on anyone who exited the courthouse with details for what was already being called “The Trial Of The Century”. Everyone took their seats, and Hannibal let the proceedings pass in a blur as he fought not to look back over his shoulder, for Will.

When Will entered, the Hannibal figment that followed him around had disappeared, melted into the real Hannibal where he sat, just rows in front of Will, so all he saw was the back of his head. Will had to remain calm and quiet, lost in his thoughts as he put himself back home in his new house, thinking about Molly and Walter instead until he was called to testify.

Really he hoped they never called him. It’d mean having to look at Hannibal, in the eye, all over again.

“The Prosecution calls Will Graham to the stand,” the District Attorney said, decisively, and the entire courtroom, save for Hannibal himself, turned their heads in unison to look at the profiler, whose photo had been splashed across nearly as many tabloids as Hannibal’s had.

Getting up slowly, dressed immaculately, shaven and a haircut, Will walked to the stand, never once turning around to look at Hannibal. He was sworn in and then he got into the box, and sat there, waiting for the first lawyer to start.

Hannibal licked his lips as Will walked to the stand. He had to remind himself that this was not an illusion, or a beautiful figment of his imagination. It was Will. Hannibal took a deep breath of the air when Will passed, and almost laughed at the aftershave that was even worse than usual … so terrible that it was probably given as a sentimental gift, by a child. 

Hannibal felt his heart twist in his chest as his agile mind put together the cues. Will was clean-shaven, his hair recently cut, he was well-dressed. This was not for the cameras, Will had no regard for how he might appear in the press. Will wanted to appear respectable for someone else.   
  
“Mr. Graham, how long have you known Hannibal Lecter?” the District Attorney asked, with a direct tone.

“Going on four years,” Will answered, keeping his eyes everywhere but Hannibal, sure that his heart would twist awkwardly, that all the work he’d done would be for nothing.

Hannibal’s eyes, meanwhile, were trained on Will, analyzing every tiny detail about him. Will was uncomfortable, and nervous. Hannibal could see a red flush creeping up his neck under his shirt collar, and Will had a distinctly guilty expression, as though he were on trial.

“During that time, have you had knowledge as to Hannibal Lecter’s crimes?” the DA asked, confidently.

Will nodded slowly, looking at the DA, jaw shifting. “I had knowledge of them once I figured it out. That was almost a year in, after he set me up to fall for some of his murders.”

“Can you tell the court exactly how Dr. Lecter framed you? I’m sure you’ve been waiting to do so for quite some time,” the DA said, with a hint of an understanding smile at Will, and a look back at Hannibal.

“Do you want the whole story or what it boiled down to?” Will asked, brow raised at the attorney, head tilted just so. It would be a long trial either way.

“We’ve got time, Mr. Graham, and I believe you swore to give us the whole truth,” the DA said with a nod of his head, encouraging Will to go on.   
  
The whole truth, Hannibal thought, and smiled a little at Will. The whole truth was something Will would never put on public record, it was too personal, too complex, too nuanced and private for that. He felt himself nod at Will, as though giving his own blessing, and swallowed hard, looking away from him for the first time since Will took the stand.

When Will did finally look at Hannibal, it was hard to imagine him locked up forever, so he averted his gaze back to the DA, with nod. “I had gotten sick with encephalitis, Dr. Lecter knew about it, he’d been able to smell it on me. We had friendly sessions together to help me work through my mind, and the crime scenes. Someone to be my paddle. At the time I wasn’t aware of being sick, and Hannibal-- Dr.Lecter-- used that and other unorthodox methods to mess with my mind. I lost time often, couldn’t remember being places or how I got there. At one point I woke up at home, and threw up an ear. He had planted it there when I had one of my episodes. I thought I had killed Abigail Hobbs. He was clever enough to put lots of evidence from his murders around my home, in my everyday life, so I looked like the copycat killer.” 

Hannibal looked back up at Will, unamused at Will’s sterile and simplistic description of the strange dance that had brought them together, and fused them at the heart, and the mind. It was a painless skimming of the concrete events themselves, as though Will couldn’t bear to look at the past any longer. Hannibal, in contrast, could not stop.    
  
“That requires complex planning, and long-range, rational thinking,” the DA noted as he glared at Hannibal, then looked back at Will. “In your long association with Dr. Lecter, and in your professional opinion as a profiler who once worked for the FBI, would you characterize Dr. Lecter as of sound mind?”   
  
“Objection!” Hannibal’s lawyer snapped. “Will Graham is not a psychiatrist, he is not an expert on sanity versus insanity in the eyes of the court.”   
  
The judge considered the objection, then shook his head. “I’ll allow the question. Mr. Graham’s association with the defendant makes him a character witness. Answer the question, Mr. Graham.”

“Hannibal Lecter has many trains of thought, they are everywhere at once,” Will started to say, chin lifted as he looked at the DA, and then at Hannibal for a moment. “In every direction, and most of those directions are always of sound mind, as far as I have seen.”

The DA blinked at Will as though a little alarmed that Will had not given quite the answer they had discussed before. Hannibal’s eyes went darker, and he shifted his jaw as he considered what Will said. Will knew very well, he had to know that portraying Hannibal as sane meant he would send him to the death penalty.    
  
The DA recouped, and approached Will, making eye contact. “ _ Most _ of Hannibal Lecter’s trains of thought are  _ always _ of sound mind,” he repeated, for the jury’s benefit. “That’s more than I can say for myself after a long trial.”    
  
The jury chuckled, a little nervously, and the DA relaxed.  “Defence’s witness, your honor.”

Hannibal’s lawyer stood and approached Will, “Mr. Graham, are you a psychiatrist? Have you ever been to medical school?”

“No,” Will answered simply, hands his lap now as he watched Hannibal’s lawyer through thick lenses of his glasses.

“No. Have you ever seen Doctor Lecter behave in a way that you would say is deeply irrational? Unusual? Odd?”

“Irrational, unusual, and odd for Hannibal? No.” Will sighed, shaking his head a little, curls mussed out of place as he did, the scar on his forehead was still pink with healing. “He did try to cut into my head once. That was new.”

The defence lawyer smiled a little at Will, and put his hand on the edge of the half-wall between them. “I don’t mean odd for Dr. Lecter. He’s a widely acknowledged genius in more than one field, that in itself can make people shrug off all sorts of irrational behavior. I’m talking about behavior that is abnormal, or odd for someone like you or me, for the members of our jury. Cutting into your head? That … certainly qualifies. Why did he do that, do you think? Did he ever tell you why he cut into your head? Was this in a surgical setting?”

That whole day had been very blurry to Will since he had been drugged, and he still had trouble remembering exactly why or what happened. “It was at a dining room table, in an apartment in Florence,” Will explained, “He drugged me. I don’t recall there being much explanation. He said something to Jack Crawford about it.”

“That is a very, very, very strange way to treat a friend. I have never cut into one of my friend’s heads at a dinner table, I don’t think anyone else in the room has … Did you have some sort of disagreement? Did you argue over something, or was this unexpected?” the defence lawyer asked as Hannibal licked his lips, watching Will with an almost tender look in his eyes, able to see what his lawyer was driving at.

“I’ve never expected to be one of Hannibal Lecter’s meals,” Will insisted, aware of what they were doing, and he wasn’t going to start lying now. “I had just met up with him at an art gallery. It had been months seen I had seen him last.”

“After he cut into your head, did he act as though he had done something to end your friendship? From his behavior afterward, did he seem to  _ understand _ that cutting into your skull was something that would make you hate and fear him?” the lawyer asked, as he paced. “No. He never acknowledged any of it, or explained it. I can only assume he wanted to so he could preserve and keep me a certain way --remember me a certain way,” Will replied.

The jury shifted in their chairs and a few of them began to take notes as Will spoke. Hannibal himself wrote a note on a pad of paper and turned it so that his attorney could see. His lawyer nodded, and approached Will again.

“Would you say Hannibal was unusual when you first met him? Would you characterize him as a stable, predictable man, or would you say he stood out amongst everyone else you knew, to that point?” the attorney asked.   
  
“Objection,” the DA said, “I thought Mr. Graham wasn’t a  _ psychiatrist _ …”   
  
“I’ll allow it. Mr. Graham is acting as a character witness,” the judge said, and looked at Will, nodding for him to go on.

“No more than myself, but…” Will shrugged, shaking his head a little. “I’m not exactly normal. Dr. Lecter was not the typical psychiatrist, no. He was different, than say, Dr. Bloom. His methods were strange, but they worked, from what I saw.”

“So, even to someone who describes himself as abnormal, Hannibal Lecter made an impression as atypical,” the lawyer said, summarizing Will’s statement. 

“Is his manner of communicating straight-forward and to the point, or rather … fantastical? Full of images? Hard to follow?” the lawyer asked, and Hannibal watched Will eagerly.

Will swallowed, but did not miss a beat. “Hannibal relies on imagery. Mind Palaces where he stores all his memories vividly. He talks in what might seem like riddles to some, sure. That could be hard to follow if you don’t keep mind space with him.”

A fond, sad smile crossed Hannibal’s face, and he felt his throat squeeze, tightly. He and Will shared mind space, permanently. 

“Your job with the FBI was to keep mind space with the criminally insane. You have a gift for being able to understand the mentally ill, it’s your specialty. Would you say that you were able to understand Dr. Lecter’s mind in a way that ‘normal’ people could not?” the lawyer asked.

“Yes,” Will answered, his gaze flitting to Hannibal’s for a moment and then back to the lawyer.

The defence lawyer nodded, with a soft smile. “No further questions for this witness, your honor.” 

The judge nodded, and gestured for Will to leave the stand. “You may step down, Mr. Graham.”

Will nodded and slipped out of the box, his legs were shaking far more than he expected they might, but he managed back to his seat, quietly.

Will passed Hannibal’s table, and Hannibal’s dark eyes followed Will all the way back to his seat with a sigh. He only turned back to face the front of the court when the judge used his gavel and adjourned the court for a recess.

The recess was short, and chaotic as messengers scrambled out to contact waiting reporters outside, and people bought coffee and water, and texted before the Judge returned to the bench, and recalled Court back to order.

“The prosecution would like to call Hannibal Lecter to the stand,” The DA said, in a flat voice, clearly unhappy with how Will’s testimony had gone.    
  
Hannibal stood, and was escorted to the witness stand in chains, then sworn in, which he did with a distracted air. His eyes searched the room for Will the entire time, and then he took his seat.   
  
“Dr. Lecter, you were a surgeon before you became a psychiatrist. Surgery is a field that employs the stable and the rational, is it not?” the DA asked, pacing the floor as he tried to gain control of his case, again.   
  
“I would ask Dr. Abel Gideon. He was both a surgeon and a long time patient at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane … before I killed him, of course,” Hannibal said, lightly, without a care in the world.    
  
The jury shifted in their chairs again, and the DA glared at Hannibal, clearly having a bad day.    
  
“Generally, surgeons are not successful if they cannot control their impulses,” the DA countered.   
  
“Yes. I imagine that’s why I  _ left _ the field,” Hannibal said, staring at Will instead of the DA.

“Your record states that you chose to leave surgery to pursue psychiatry, you were not forced out for lack of control,” the prosecutor said, and consulted a sheet of paper on his desk.

“I think you may not understand that technical genius and emotional control do not always co-exist. Van Gogh had remarkable skill and control with a paintbrush, but amputated his own ear, and then killed himself. May I remind you that as per your earlier statement, only a psychiatrist is considered an expert in sanity and stability in court.  _ I _ am a psychiatrist, District Attorney Davids. _ You _ are not.”   
  
The DA ground his jaw and glared at Hannibal, beginning to regret calling him to the stand. “So, you’re sane enough to be a doctor, but not sane enough to stand trial for murder, is that what you’re saying?” he fired back at Hannibal.   
  
“My patients, should you speak to more of them, might argue very forcefully that I was certainly not sane enough to be a doctor. Many of them found my methods strange; quite a few of them left after one or two sessions, and I never heard from them again. Will Graham was an exception, in every possible way. He understood me, he stayed with me, no matter what I did. I did state, on the record and under oath during Will’s trial, that is Will Graham is, and always will be my friend. That is  _ still  _ true.”

Will bit the inside of his cheek as people looked over at him, behind themselves, to see his reaction, but all he did was shrink into his seat a little more.

The courtroom buzzed with low chatter, and the judge banged his gavel for order as the DA sat down at his desk, frustrated. “No further questions, your honor.”  
The defense lawyer stood, and approached Hannibal, in a friendly manner. “Doctor Lecter, do you believe in God?”  
  
“Yes. I do. I believe God is a sadist, and he enjoys punishing humanity for the sake of creating a design he enjoys.”  
  
“Do you see God, hear God?” the lawyer asked, and waited as Hannibal was quiet for a moment.  
  
“I believe that by killing and preparing the rude and offensive for consumption, I transform them into something beautiful. I am improving the world, in that way, I am doing God’s work, which I imagine, might infuriate him. I’m stealing a little of his fun for myself.” Almost everyone in the courtroom shifted in their seats, and almost no one breathed as Hannibal spoke.

“You see religious meaning in what you’ve done? What else do you see?” the attorney asked. 

Hannibal’s gaze returned to Will, and he sighed, “I hear voices.”

“Voices of people who are not there with you at the time?” the lawyer asked.

“Yes. I speak with the voices of those I have lost. I see them, too, as though they are sitting with me. We have long, beautiful discussions in my cell. It feels so real that I very nearly do not miss them, any longer.”

Will felt his heart crack a little, well aware of what Hannibal was speaking about, as he, too, had the same problem. Even apart, they were still so close. With Molly waiting to hear from him back home, Will knew he had to sever this break for good, he had to get away. Hannibal could get his plea of insanity, but Will couldn’t be there anymore. His testimony done, Will got up with that, and walked out, hands up as reporters tried to flag him down, and he crept by them, pushing the way out.

Hannibal watched as Will stood up and left, in the middle of his testimony. Before the door closed on Will, Hannibal saw his mirage of Will split away from him, and double back to take Will’s vacant seat. His dark eyes followed the mirage, and he stared at the spot, throat clamped tight over a hard lump that made it difficult to breathe. 

“Doctor Lecter? Doctor Lecter, I asked you a question…” his lawyer said, as the courtroom buzzed with murmurs.   
  
“My apologies. Please go on. I was distracted,” Hannibal said, softly, still staring at Will.

The Mirage of Will sat there, far more patient and and content than the real one, waiting to hear the rest of Hannibal’s testimony.


	5. Chapter 5

A large looking envelope arrived at Will’s place one summer morning, not too long after Will fled Hannibal’s trial. It was addressed to Will, from an F. Lounds in Baltimore, written in loopy handwriting with a cheap, streaky pen. Will looked at the envelope and sneered a little before opening it.

Inside was a special edition copy of Tattle Crime in print. On the cover was a photo of Hannibal and Will talking that must have been taken just before Hannibal fled to Italy. The headline screamed: MURDER HUSBANDS! Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter’s Blood Soaked Romantic Honeymoon From Hell!

It was the sort of things nightmares were made of, and not at all true, but Freddie did like her drama. Will put the thing down on the coffee table, just staring at it for a good long twenty minutes, not touching, but just staring. That had almost been his life.  _ Almost _ . He had Molly now, and Walter. Normal, sweet, Molly and her son, a makeshift family for a damaged, but healing man.

The photo of them had been taken outside of Hannibal’s house in Baltimore. Will was more groomed than usual, wearing the coat Hannibal had taken when he left for Italy, and Hannibal was near him, smiling at something Will said, one hand against the small of his back. It was the sort of look Hannibal Lecter never gave anyone, but one so many who entered his sphere of influence wished they could have: there was something adoring about it, fascinated, and proud of the shaggy haired man he was close to. Will, in the photo, was wearing a rare smile. It was a good photo, even a beautiful photo of the two of them, and the bond they shared. The look between them was intense, it was very, very easy to see where Freddie got the idea to call them husbands. They looked like a happy couple.

Maybe one of the happiest moments of Will’s life, honestly, no matter how much danger and damage he had gotten into. A knock at the door brought him out of his thoughts and Will went to get it, faced with Molly and Walter. They’d been dating for a while now, and came to the house to stay for weeks on end while school was out.

“Hey.”

_ About to hide our photo as though it were an illicit magazine, Will? _ Hannibal taunted as he watched Will react to his normality arrive at the door.  _ Afraid they might be bright enough to read between the very widely drawn lines, and see somethi _ ng _ there in your eyes that is never quite around for dear Molly? _

“Heya,” Molly said and leaned in to kiss Will’s cheek softly, shucking her purse down over the couch and walking right through the mirage of Hannibal. Walter walked in after her, smiled at Will, and went right for the dogs, of which two more of Molly’s followed them inside.

Hannibal narrowed his eyes at Molly for that, and stepped closer to Will with a sigh.  _ She is a very nice woman. She has nothing at all wrong with her. Rather like potatoes and over-cooked steak without herbs or spice. Offensive to no one; you have a much more adventurous palate, Will.  You’ve never told her about me, about us, have you? The technical truth, perhaps, but hardly the entire truth. _

“Not yet,” Will said out loud, and Molly turned to look at him.

“What was that, Will?” she asked, letting the dogs out to the backyard with all of Will’s, to let them run around.

“Nothing. Just, uh… nothing.” Will sighed, and Molly walked over and kissed him on the lips this time, hand on his chest as she smiled up at him.

“Nothing huh?” She grinned and wandered over to the couch, and then sat down, plopping there, and then leaned over when she saw the little paper sitting there. “What’s this? Tattlecrime? Isn’t that…” she picked up the paper and looked at the headline, brows curving inward.

“Nothing,” Will repeated and walked over, taking the it from her, crumpling it up in his hands. “It’s nothing.”

“You… know Hannibal Lecter?”

_ Be careful, Will, the lone hamster in the exercise wheel of Molly’s mind has begun to scent the air, and pace in her track _ , Hannibal sighed, seething quietly at Molly from where he stood.

Will stood there, his mind reeling, still trying to think about what he would tell her. She waved a hand in front of his eyes.

“Will?”

Blinking, he  squeezed the paper tight in his hands. “I knew him. He’s in prison now. We had a very close friendship, but it ended.”

Molly, took the crumpled paper from him and decidedly threw it into the recycle. “Where’d you get that?”

“Sent to me by Freddie Lounds.”

“Whatever you had with him is over right?” Molly asked, stepping into Will’s space, she wrapped her arms around his waist, gazing up at him with plump cheeks and bright eyes.

“Right.” Will took a deep breath, and Molly smiled brighter, and Will knew right then what her had to do, something to sink his ship with Hannibal for good. He touched Molly’s face gently with back of his fingers, caressing her cheeks softly. “We should get married.”

“Married?” Molly’s eyes lit up like fireworks.

Hannibal stood behind Molly, shadows pooling under the sharp lines of his cheekbones, under his brows, hiding his expression, save for the hard, firm line of his lips as he watched Will propose.  _ Do you really think a ring on your finger will send me away forever, Will?  _ Hannibal asked, in a whisper.

“Yes,” Will said, answering both of them at once. “I know you’ve been married before, so it doesn’t have to be fancy, we can go to town, we can get married… you practically live here anyway.”

The beautiful cream colored suit that Will imagined Hannibal in melted away to reveal the blood stained white shirt he wore the night he confronted Will in his kitchen, about betraying him. The mirage in Will’s mind looked the same: utterly gutted and heart-broken, with teary eyes, speechless at the pain, with a blade in one hand. 

Unafraid of what mirages would do, Will kept his eyes on Molly only, and kissed her sweetly. “We could go now.”

“Like this?” Molly laughed, dressed in cut off shorts and a flowy tank. Will thought she looked beautiful. That she  _ always _ looked beautiful.

“Yeah. Grab Wally, we’ll go.”

Molly giggled and ran off to gather her son and get the dogs situated, leaving Will faced with Hannibal once again.

_ A single photo of us is enough to propel you down the aisle to prove Freddie Lounds wrong? Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much, Will,  _ Hannibal whispered, and stepped closer to Will. Red began to spread across Hannibal’s shirt, as though Will had gutted  _ him _ this time, physically eviscerated him with his rash proposal to Molly. Hannibal trembled, as Will had trembled, and the mirage of him clung to Will’s shoulders, as Will had clung to Hannibal that night. He whispered in Will’s ear as blood that only Will could see began to ooze all over the wood planks of the living room floor.

_ Perhaps when Garrett Jacob Hobbs asked you to ‘see?’, he was asking you to look within yourself, to perceive the truth, Will. You are not disgusted by the act of killing, you are disgusted at your own delight in it’s beauty.  It is not within Molly’s nature to look beyond the surface of things. Be aware, Will, that you are claiming two more victims with this ceremony, wedding them without their consent to the monster who lives beneath your soft, rumpled, person-suit. When you question whether or not you are really capable of cruelty, Will, look back upon this moment, and you will see yourself at your most selfish. _

Will held the imaginary Hannibal, who bled  and bled, the way Will had only ever wanted to see him bleed. He watched as the red spread out over the planks and all over the living room rug. Molly walked in and stepped through it as if it never existed, and touched Will’s arms.

“You okay? We don’t have to-”

“No. Yes.” Will sighed and looked at her, wiping his hands on his clothes, everything disappeared, and only Molly and Walter remained. Maybe it had worked. “I’m great. More than great.” He’d have to tell her all about Hannibal Lecter. Well,  _ enough _ about him for her to understand.

Walter rolled his eyes at them. “Are we going?”

“Yeah. You’re okay with this?” Will asked, pulled from his thoughts completely, the image of Hannibal was finally gone, finally no longer haunting him after months and months of trying.

The boy nodded, shrugged, and opened the front door ready to go. Will had been as much of a father to him as his real dad had been, at least as much as Walter could remember. Molly smiled and tugged Will’s hand toward the opened door, and he felt his feet move, like they were no longer stuck to the ground, tacky with drying blood. Will followed with one last glance back at the living room, before shutting the door completely on an old life.


	6. Chapter 6

For Frederick Chilton’s enthusiastic co-operation in his trial, Hannibal had conceded to allow Frederick to write a book on the subject, and tolerated the occasional interview with the insufferable psychiatrist. Chilton, for his part, was doing his best to gain every ounce of information on Hannibal’s past from him. No attempt to gain Hannibal’s trust for details was too ham-fisted for Frederick to consider, it seemed. From gifts of food to flattery, everything had been met with a cool, polite, but frustrating response from the infamous Lecter.  
  
Finally, however, Chilton walked into Hannibal’s room with a gleam in his eyes, and a cutting from a newspaper in hand, along with his note pad and pen. “Hannibal, good to see you. I thought I would start off our session today-” Chilton adored using the word session, as though Hannibal was his patient, “with something a little … well, I am aware it’s personal, but-” Chilton looked behind him, as though someone might be listening in the empty room. “I think you should know, better that you find out from a friend than someone else…”   
  
Hannibal looked up from his drawing, and arched an eyebrow, like an indifferent jaguar watching a tourist approach it’s cage with a sliver of bacon to offer.

“It is far preferable to learn of unfortunate events from a friend,” Hannibal agreed, without agreeing that Frederick was one of them. He stood at the metal tray as Frederick passed the clipping through with dramatic gravitas.

Hannibal pulled the tray through, and opened it, then picked up the clipping of the small article from a copy of Tattlecrime. 

 _“WILL GRAHAM: MARRIED!_ _  
_   
It seems Will Graham is trying hard to cover over his dark life on the run with Hannibal Lecter. He married a woman named Molly Foster in a very hush hush ceremony in Maine on Thursday. We at Tattlecrime wish Molly all the best, and good luck. No word on who catered the event."

Hannibal stared at the scrap of paper in his hand for a long moment as Chilton watched his face for any expression, any fleeting sign of heartbreak or anguish for the book. Hannibal folded the paper very neatly, and laid it on his desk, then took his seat. 

“I suppose I shall have to send a toaster oven, or the like, though I’m certain Will would understand that my options for gift-giving are quite limited at the moment,” Hannibal said, in an emotionless voice.

“You … you’re … okay with this?” Chilton asked, cautiously, more than a little disappointed as he took his seat again.

“Shall we continue where we left off the other day?” Hannibal asked.

 _You know I wouldn’t do that_ , the mirage of Will said, glaring at Chilton, _marriage to a_ **_woman_ ** _? So soon?_

Hannibal continued the ‘session’ with Chilton dispassionately. He was the very picture of grace and calm on the surface, while under the table, his left hand was clenched so tightly that his blunt nails drew dark blood from his palm with a fist that shook from tension.

Finally, Chilton left, an air of disappointment lingering around him as the doors closed behind him, and left Hannibal alone with his imagination. He stood up, suddenly enough to tip the chair he was sitting on over, and paced back and forth in his cell, agitated, his entire body trembling with emotion he had refused to let Chilton harvest for publishing.

“You are married …” Hannibal whispered aloud, to his mirage, flushed with emotion and suppressed jealousy.

 _Who, but you, would I get married to?_ The mirage rolled his eyes and moved with Hannibal every where he went, arms folded over his chest.

“A woman named Molly Foster,” Hannibal whispered, and pulled out the folded clipping, re-reading it. He allowed himself to react this time, and closed his eyes, unable to help but picture Will as he stood at the front of a beautiful cathedral with a woman dressed in white, her face covered with a veil. Hannibal could hear the choir sing as pain shot through his heart. Will had re-created the wound man with Hannibal’s heart, it had been impaled from every angle, taken down like a trophy on the serengeti.

The mirage moved over and looked at the clipping, no picture attached of course. _Can you blame me?_

“For marrying another?” Hannibal whispered, and swallowed hard as he took the clipping, stained with the blood from his cut open palm, and slipped it into his sketchbook, composed of sketches of Will from every angle. Hannibal held the book and stared at the cover with dull eyes. He was speechless with pain, and in shock.

 _Well, can you?_ The mirage tipped his head and stared at Hannibal. _After all we’ve been through have you ever apologized?_

“You have never apologized, either. I assumed there was no need,” Hannibal whispered with one palm on the cover of his book of Will sketches.

_Have I ever apologized for anything?_

Hannibal looked up at Will, more painfully exquisite than ever. Now, even on his mirage, Will’s ring finger was occupied by a plain band of yellow gold. “No. Neither have I. We have that in common. I suppose Mrs. Graham is the sort to apologize.”

Will’s image shrugged.

Hannibal’s eyes lingered on Will’s face, and then moved down to his left hand, to stare at the ring. “I wish you the best of luck.”

Hannibal had been waiting, hoping that Will would find a reason, however flimsy, to come and see him. He had an arrangement with Alana that he was permitted to keep his appearance to his standards with supervised manicures with safety precautions, professional trims, and hair color so that when Will returned, he looked the same as he ever had.   
  
Hannibal’s heart was like a cathedral with the roof caved in, and with the brokenness came the light of day, and harsh reality. Will was not coming. He had married some woman. He would never come.   
  
A button, under Hannibal’s desk was wired to bring a nurse in, if required, and Hannibal moved after sitting very still for a long time, then pressed it. Bernice let herself in, as surly as ever. “Yes?” she asked, with a grim expression.   
  
“I’d like a haircut,” he said, with cool dignity.   
  
“Your fancy hairdresser isn’t coming in anytime soon,” Bernice sighed.   
  
“That won’t be necessary. I am no longer expecting guests,” Hannibal said, softly.   
  
Bernice gave Hannibal a strange look, and left to tell Dr. Bloom. Hannibal did not protest during his institutional haircut, nor did he eat anything he was served, no matter how elegant, for over a week. He became easier to handle, much quieter, and yet increasingly bitter as the trial went on, week after week. And even then, Will’s mirage continued to stick around.

Hannibal did not speak to the mirage, or acknowledge him, save for sketching the ghost over and over, mutely, saying with images what could not be expressed with words, in any language. The mirage was just that, a mirage, and Will had left him behind, and replaced him in a matter of weeks with whomever Molly Foster was. At night, when Hannibal began to sleep again, he dreamed of carrying Will through snow, like a bride.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes this. Not sure we'll do more gen related stuff like this, but if you liked it, please let us know! Also, if you have an idea you'd love to throw our way, visit us on [tumblr](http://constructfairytales.tumblr.com)! From there you can follow our personals and contact us there, or even on twitter!

Weeks after marriage, Will thought everything was fine, and it was, with Molly and Walter, but found himself having a hard time not being able to talk to anyone. He wrote in his notebook, but his sessions with Steve he stopped attending when he met Molly. He hid the book away, in a drawer, tucked away for his eyes only. But when writing didn’t help either, Will began to wander the house wondering if he could find the mirage of Hannibal again, but all that remained was the stained wood floors where the mirage died and bled out. Quiet and turning in on himself, Will took to talking to the dogs, and making sure they were all fed, happy, and healthy.

Obsessively so. When Molly was gone at work, Will groomed each dog, complete with baths, and did nothing but take care of them. Even when she was home with Walter, he was still careful not to let them near the dogs, only he could feed them, only he could take them out. It was equal parts having missed them when he was gone, and not having that comfort of someone who really understood him around, but the dogs always understood on some level.

Molly came home one day and Will had a new dog out back, giving him a bath, shirt rolled to his elbows, scruffy and long haired, he’d not taken nearly as well of himself as he did the dogs. She sent Walter off to do his homework, and stood behind Will for a long while as he murmured and talked to the dog.

“A new one, huh?” she asked, worriedly, and Will turned his head, surprise lit in his eyes, and blinked at her.

“What?”

“New dog.” She shrugged to the one being bathed. “That’s not one of ours.”

“He is now. This is Chesapeake.” It was the only name fitting enough for the sandy colored dog, who panted over at Molly as she came to pet him.

“He’s handsome.”

“He knows,” Will snipped at her shortly, and Molly took her hand back.

“I’m going to go make dinner.” Molly slipped back into the house, leaving Will with the new dog. She checked on him, but never went out there again, and by the time the dog was clean, Will was drying him down and bringing him inside.

Will introduced the new dog to the others, but didn’t leave any of them alone for a second, and Molly started to worry. Whatever Will went through and didn’t speak about, it was clearly affecting him in ways that she couldn’t help. Will had only told her so much, and she never pried, she didn’t feel she had to. So, Molly did a little bit of digging, not much, enough to know the sort of man Hannibal Lecter was, and since Will had trouble sleeping at night, she thought removing anything that would remind will of him was the best choice. Not that there was much. She tossed out news paper clippings she found, and then the notebook he always hid away. She didn’t read it, she burned it.

Chesapeake was a sleek, handsome, sandy-colored dog with brown eyes. He followed Will everywhere as a quiet, dignified shadow who preferred to stay next to Will when the other dogs were playing. Chesapeake was sweetly possessive over Will, and refused to listen when any of the other dogs wanted to sleep on Will’s feet. He never allowed it, and often wedged himself between Will and Molly, stubbornly, even if Will didn’t sleep well or often.

Molly bought soothing oils to try and get Will to calm naturally, but that never worked for the nightmares, and often she knew he stayed up with the dogs, just to avoid them. After a few months of the behavior, one day Will got up to make coffee first, before feeding the dogs, who crowded his feet, used to the routine of having their breakfasts made first. Molly watched Will from the archway, as he gently pushed them away.

“You’ll get fed in a minute,” he murmured, setting a cup of coffee down on the counter and poured another for Molly. Only then did he pull the bone broth from the fridge, and start the process of making their breakfast.

It was something, maybe not anything big, but she saw a glimmer of the man she married there, trying his best to push through. She took the cup and leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

That night, Will slept longer, by two hours, before going to sit with the dogs. The next night, too, and a week later, it was up to three hours, and he no longer bathed the dogs everyday, or went out with them every single time they had to pee.

Chesapeake, however, seemed to feel some sort of duty to remain at Will’s side, quiet as a ghost, but unshakably loyal. He behaved rather more like a cat who chose one person in the world to adore, and one alone, and for Chesapeake, that person was Will.

Months dragged into a few years, and Chesapeake stayed ever loyal as Winston was to Will, maybe even more so. Will let go of his obsessive nature with the dogs, finally relaxing into his life, and no longer thought about Hannibal until the one day the post brought a envelope addressed to him, forwarded from the FBI. Will shoved it into a drawer and pretended he never got it. He knew what it was about and who it was from. He’d avoid the Tooth Fairy case for as long as he could. The second he saw Jack’s black car drive up, he knew, however, that there was no longer room for running.

He could try.

Chesapeake’s ears went up at the sound of the new vehicle. He could smell Will’s tension, and sat at the bottom of the stairs, blocking Jack’s path up to the house with a resolute look in his dark eyes.   
  
Jack climbed out, and looked around, then at Will, and approached him. Chesapeake ran between him and Jack, and barked sharply at him, teeth bared. Jack paused, and put his hands up, eyebrows raised.   
  
“Invested in a guard dog?” Jack asked, and took a step back as the dog snarled at him.

“That’s Chesapeake,” Will stated, coming down the steps just behind the dog, looking Jack over. No greeting, nothing else. Will thought for sure this man would take a hint.

Chesapeake sat in front of Will, glaring at Jack sharply, who chuckled, and stretched out a glove to the dog, which he snapped at with long teeth, wolfishly. “New dog? Not used to people yet?” Jack asked, staying his distance after the dog snapped at him. “Or just the jealous type?” he asked, with a look at Will.

“Had him a few years. He doesn’t like people he doesn’t know,” Will stated, and tutted Chesapeake up the steps, officially allowing Jack to pass through.

Chesapeake growled, but moved up the stairs, still eyeing Jack as he spoke with Will. 

“I think you know why I’m here,” Jack sighed, almost apologetically, but not quite. “You’ve been watching the news?”

“I try not to,” Will said, looking toward the house, but not letting Jack in, not yet. Molly was out with Walter.

“It’s a nice place you’ve got here,” Jack said, looking around the beautiful woods in which Will’s new home was nestled. “Congratulations, by the way. Heard through the grapevine you got married.”

Will knew what Jack wanted to hear, and he nodded his head. “I did. Best decision I’ve made in years.”

“Have you got kids now too?” Jack asked, with a cautious look at Chesapeake, then at Will, wondering if Will had become as domesticated as the dog had not.

 “Walter. Molly’s son.” Will sighed and looked at Jack. “Coffee?”  
  
“Yeah, coffee would be good,” Jack nodded, aware that he was kicking down a door that had been tightly sealed for three calm years.

 “I’ll get it, stay here.”

 

~Fin~

 

 

 


End file.
